


Don't Forget Me, I Beg

by tomato_greens



Category: Glee
Genre: F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-24
Updated: 2011-11-24
Packaged: 2017-10-26 12:18:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/283037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tomato_greens/pseuds/tomato_greens
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Reggie "The Sauce" Salazar's niece is many things, but a lesbian is definitely not one of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't Forget Me, I Beg

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, I––I don't even know. I'm really really not even slightly in this fandom, and then I saw this episode despite my misgivings and this just kind of happened. But JSYK, OUTING PEOPLE IS BASICALLY NEVER OKAY. I guess the best explanation for this is a post-3.06 ...I don't wanna call it a coda, but I'm not sure what else to call it? A post-3.06 ~*exploration*~. There.
> 
> Warnings: TEENAGERS AND THEIR FEELINGS. Plus a non-graphic and untrue reference to incest via Santana-insult.

Laura Salazar is many things, but a lesbian is definitely not one of them.

She's sixteen, and a little lonely since her ex-best friend Deepa dyed the pink out of her hair and joined the Cheerios last year, and wishes she were brave enough to join Physics League, but she's pretty sure her mother wouldn't have approved––and anyway it's not like she's that good physics. She is a decent student and a terrible dodgeball player. The best word to describe Laura Salazar would be: quiet. Good, maybe, if she's lucky.

The very worst word of all words, ever, to describe Laura Salazar would be: lesbian.

So when she overhears Finn Hudson and Santana Lopez arguing in the hall, her chest clutches in sudden anxiety; who even _uses_ words like that in public? Someone might hear, someone might know––might think they know something about––well, apparently about Santana, which isn't _news_ , exactly, although hearing it put out in the air like that is terrifying by association.

Santana doesn't even look like she cares, after a second to process it. Laura probably cares more than Santana and she's just standing around awkwardly, waiting for Jacob Ben Pervawhatshisface to quit dicking around with the water fountain. The anxiety turns to a white flash of––something else; Laura stuffs it down and goes to find a water fountain not being held hostage by someone who tries to collect used underwear and thinks that's a normal healthy expression of sexuality.

-

"Did you hear about Santana Lopez?" she asks Sammy at B-block lunch. She's pretty sure he doesn't actually like her, but they're the best each other has to prevent eating alone in the bathrooms or, or, or somewhere else equally hideous, like outside the library or something.

"Who cares about Santana Lopez?" Sammy answers, rolling his eyes. "She's a bitch, she's a Cheerio, whatever."

"She's a lesbian," Laura corrects, feeling shocky and punchy with abandon.

"Everyone knows she's sleeping with that other Brittany bitch," Sammy says uninterestedly, like it's not even a thing. "Who cares?"

"You shouldn't use the word 'bitch,'" says Laura, because she doesn't really know how to respond. She shouldn't care. It doesn't have anything to do with her, or even anything she believes in.

"Don't tell me you've been reading feminist tumblrs again," Sammy sighs, "I can't take it anymore."

"No, I'm just saying." She takes a bite of her sandwich, which is, unfortunately, as unappetizing to taste as it is to look at. "I didn’t know she was a lesbian.”

Sammy levels a look at her. “Is this gonna be a thing with you? Who gives a fuck, Laura? I mean, obviously you do, but why?”

Laura can’t move. “I––“

“This is about your uncle, isn’t it,” Sammy hisses, and Laura feels herself suddenly thaw. “You know, just because you’re living there or whatever doesn’t mean you have to be exactly like him.”

“My uncle is a good man,” Laura says, on uneven footing now.

“Yeah? You sure about that?”

“Yeah,” says Laura, squishing her sandwich between her fingers.

Sammy snorts. “Then why’s he got a smear campaign as bad as Sue Sylvester’s?”

“I should support him, he’s my family.”

Sammy sighs and says, “Family’s not everything.”

“Yeah, well you can say that, can’t you,” Laura shoots back, “you’ve got one.”

He winces. “Look, I’m not trying to diminish your familial bond or whatever, but––“

“What? But what?”

He squares his shoulders and stands up. “Look, just because they’re not all as obvious as Kurt Hummel or Santana Lopez doesn’t mean there aren’t other people out there,” he says, through his teeth like it hurts him. “People who––who don’t follow his whole family values shtick to the letter, or whatever.” He shrugs and picks up his tray. “I’m just saying.”

“Fuck,” Laura says to his disappearing back. _Fuck, he knows._

-

That night at dinner, Uncle Reggie is in great form, eloquent like he rarely is outside of the family table. “It’s the fags,” he says, knowingly, tapping the side of his nose. “Get them to quiet down and stop getting distracted by their rights in the military, bam!” He shoves a fist into the table, hard. “Middle East solved through good hard work.”

Laura nods unhappily. Her aunt throws her a worried look, but doesn’t say anything, which has pretty much been the M.O. since her sister-in-law had died and unexpectedly left her high-school aged daughter to her and her husband. Still, Laura appreciates the effort.

“Santana Lopez is gay,” she hears herself say, and then, with mounting horror. “I don’t know, I think it’s kind of nice.”

Uncle Reggie looks down his impressively beaked nose at her; Aunt Charlotte stops in her tracks, one spoonful of soggy carrots for the baby left dangling in one hand. “What?” Uncle Reggie says.

“Santana Lopez, the head cheerleader,” her mouth and voice explain, while her brain is still scraping itself of the floor. “She’s got a girlfriend, I think. I’m not really sure. But she’s a lesbian.”

Uncle Reggie’s face has transformed. “What? Really? One of Sue Sylvester’s girls?”

“Yeah,” says Laura, and immediately regrets it when her uncle claps his hands together.

“Oh, this is great,” he says, doing a little dance in his seat, “just great. This is amazing.” He gets up and kisses Aunt Charlotte on the cheek and the baby on the forehead, then claps Laura on the shoulder. “You just did me the biggest favor this election’s ever seen. Thanks, kiddo.”

“Oh,” says Laura. “Okay. Yeah. Anytime.”

-

“Freak,” she tells her reflection in the bathroom mirror as she gets ready to shower and go to bed. “Stop being such a freak.”

Her reflection doesn’t listen. It so rarely does.

-

The first time she sees the ad, about a week before it airs, she feels a little sick. Her uncle is on one side of her, her aunt on the other; they’re sitting on the couch expressly for the occasion, as they have with all of his campaign ads that came before this one.

It’s an awfully good thing, Laura reflects, that she’s not a lesbian, or she might be feeling uncomfortable or something right now, instead of just having eaten too quickly at dinner.

-

She practices first, just to get a head start on assuaging some of the raging guilt that’s built up into her throat. “I’m sorry,” she tells her mirror-self in the morning, when she should be brushing her teeth. “I didn’t know he was going to do that. I’m really sorry.”

She rinses off the toothbrush she didn’t use and wipes off her mouth with the back of her hand. “Freak,” she adds, for good measure, though she’s not sure who exactly she means it for.

-

Sammy won’t speak to her, which is sort of a relief and also sort of sucks, because she’s not sure what she could even say to anything he asked her at this point, but it’s not her fault her uncle is––took a statement she made in good faith and turned it into something so ugly and cruel.

Whatever. Sammy can have his B-block lunch without her in it. She goes to sit outside the library, where at least it’s quiet. On her way back, she comes across Santana pacing a tight rectangle nearish the principal’s office, her ponytail swinging viciously behind her, nearly smacking Laura in the face.

“Uh,” Laura says. “Hi.”

Santana freezes and shoots her a look that has probably successfully killed better men than Laura Salazar, who isn’t a man at all.

“Look, I know you probably don’t know how I am––”

“Oh, I know who you are,” Santana says, with a smile sharp enough to draw blood. “You’re the bitch that sold me out to her sleazy uncle.”

“I––I’m really sorry,” says Laura. “I never meant––I just––I didn’t know––”

“It’s okay,” says Santana, shrugging.

“What?” Laura asks, cautiously, hoping.

“It’s okay,” Santana repeats, studying the nails of one hand with the kind of unstudied nonchalance Laura will never achieve. “I understand you are a lonely, pathetic, unwashed creature who was probably in search of a way to find some tender extension of affection, the likes of which you have only received from your real dad or maybe your youth pastor or something––do you like it when he touches you like that?”

Laura stumbles back a step. “I don’t know––what are you––”

“It’s real love, baby, is that what you think?” Santana says, stalking forward; the ball is in her court and Laura’s throat aches. “That’s the only reason I can think of for doing it, because you’re desperate for something and your uncle’s the only one who––“

“Stop it,” says Laura, then again, loud enough that Santana actually shuts up for a second, which gives her a chance to stutter, “I’m really, I’m just really sorry, okay, I was trying to––I mean, he’s not a bad man, I just, I was trying to see how he’d––I’m sorry. I just wanted you to know that. I didn’t mean to make any of this happen.”

She turns to walk away before Santana can start again, because she can’t take another round of this shit, but then she hears a grudging, “Okay,” and looks back for a second.

Santana has begun to pace again, but she says, “I guess I could see how––someone like you might want to see what someone like him might say.”

“Someone like me?” Laura asks, fear bubbling through her.

“I did my good deed for the month, now scram,” Santana orders, and Laura does.

-

 _Someone like me_ , Laura thinks, and wants to die.

-

Sammy won’t even look at her. Laura knows better to try than to talk to Deepa––Slushies have gone out of fashion because of the recession, but it’s never too late to reinvigorate a trend and stimulate the economy in the process.

She sits outside the library and rips her sandwich it into teeny tiny pieces before throwing the whole mess away.

-

It’s only two and a half more years, she figures. That’s livable, right? People on Death Row live all alone for decades longer, and she’s got her uncle and her aunt, her baby cousin. She’ll be fine.

-

But suddenly she finds she can’t talk to her family anymore, her throat just closes right up like it did right after her mom died, her uncle a looming threat and her aunt miles away.

Laura has never noticed, before, how very very good she was at not being alone, how complete the separation between thought and reflection had been. She can only distract herself with homework and Facebook and MySpace (god, no one’s on MySpace anymore, no wonder she has no friends) for so long before the wall’s breaking down, and down, and down.

-

Laura Salazar is many things, and a lesbian might be one of them.

She mouths the word at herself in the mirror, and then promptly vomits all over the toilet seat. Her aunt takes her temperature and lets her stay home from school even though it’s 98.6°F exactly, presses a mug of tea into her hands.

“You know, if you ever need to talk about anything, I’m here,” she says. “I know I haven’t been in the family that long, but I’m here.”

“Thanks,” Laura says, though she’s never felt further from anyone. Her aunt has a _baby_. Laura might not even ever be allowed to get that far.

She closes her eyes and focuses on the feel of the couch cushion under her cheek, the scent of the tea steaming on the coffee table. Everything hurts. _Someone like me._

-

It takes two days and more bravery than Laura knew she possessed to get back to school. She feels like it’s written on her forehead, indelible, a mourning sign in ash and bone. _Someone like me. Someone like me. Someone like me._

Just when she’s pretty sure she’s going to give up and go home and then maybe run away and join some kind of horrific crime-ring circus in order to pay her way to a new identity, Santana passes her in the hallway and nods at her. Brittany, whose pinky is linked with Santana’s, nods too, a beat later.

It suddenly occurs to Laura that Santana is a _Someone like me_ , too.

-

She starts counting them: Kurt Hummel, Blaine Anderson, Santana Lopez (and Brittany, but Brittany is just…crazy). And those are just the seniors who aren’t shy about it.  
There are about six hundred and fifty students attending William McKinley High School, so there have got to be at least––Laura figures––at least a classroomful of people with the same mark on their foreheads, the same internal refrain.

Which isn’t so bad, really. There’s power in numbers; even if she isn’t talking to any of them, they’re there.

-

Sammy is talking to some other guy by his locker when Laura finds him. He’s laughing a lot, like he’s trying to impress someone. Laura waves.

“You just don’t know when to give up, do you?” asks Sammy, which she doesn’t think is very fair considering she hasn’t so much as Facebook-stalked him since the day he told her he couldn’t speak to her anymore, but whatever. “What do you want?”

“Can we just talk?” Laura asks, steeling her nerve.

Sammy raises his eyebrows, then rolls his eyes eloquently. “Sure, if we have to, I guess.” He turns to the other guy, touching his shoulder gently. “I’ll see you in a few minutes, after.” He jerks his thumb in her direction like she’s a chore, and, oh, oh, she never knew, but Sammy is a _Someone like me_ , too.

“Are you gay?” she blurts out, which isn’t what she meant to say at all, but is as good a start as any.

Except Sammy’s face closes up, stone-cold. “Really? That’s what you wanted to talk to me about? Still?” He starts to shove past her. “Get back to me when you’re over your uncle’s stupid prejudices.”

“No, no––I––I didn’t know,” Laura says, clutching at his jacket. God, she _is_ pathetic and unwashed. “I mean––I didn’t know, but I, uh. I might also, uh. Be. That.”

Sammy stops in his tracks. “Excuse me?” he says, very carefully.

“I might––I mean, I am––look, I just realized. I can’t. I can’t say it very well, yet,” she says. “But I’m not––or I mean, I am––”

“Don’t break yourself,” Sammy says, dryly, then shakes his head. “You can’t just decide you’re gay and then have that absolve you of everything.”

“I didn’t even do––no, look, I didn’t hurt anyone on purpose,” Laura says. “I didn’t even know it was a secret I was supposed to keep. You can keep on being mad at me if you want. But I thought someone besides me should know and you’re really––you were pretty much the only person I talked to, so I thought it should be you.”

Sammy looks pained.

“You can go back to your friend,” Laura says. “Sorry to keep you so long.”

“Thanks,” says Sammy, pawing a hand through his hair. “Maybe I’ll text you this weekend or something.”

“Yeah, sure,” says Laura.

It occurs to her then that Sammy is kind of an asshole.

It also occurs to her, in a way that it hasn’t ever, quite, before, that she can find other friends, instead of waiting for them to find her.

-

“Hey, Aunt Charlotte? It’s me, Laura. Um. Can we talk, tonight? Okay, thanks. I guess I’ll call you later or whatever, or I’ll see you after dinner, or something. Bye.”

-

Laura Salazar is many things. A lesbian is probably one of them, but she’s still not sure. That’s okay, though.

She’s seventeen, and she still misses her friend Deepa, but it turns out the Physics League has some pretty cool people in it. She’s not the best student physicist the world has ever seen, but she’s not the worst, either. She is a decent student, but she’s resigned herself to the fact that she’ll never be any better at dodgeball. The best word to describe Laura Salazar would be: herself. Someone like herself.

Nothing but the best for herself, too.

-

“Hey, thanks,” she tells Santana near the end of the school year, a couple days before graduation.

“Whatever, snotwad,” says Santana. “You still need a shower.”


End file.
